


Fairy Lights

by Adox



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, and they were ROOMMATES, commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 15:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16162031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adox/pseuds/Adox
Summary: Yang probably jumped the gun, coming to the conclusion that their apartment was haunted.---Commission for my good friend Shipperoftrashyships!





	Fairy Lights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shipperoftrashyships](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shipperoftrashyships/gifts).



> Ah it's been awhile since i've written Yang and mercury, hopefully it turned out well! I would've had it done earlier if not for all my college apps and school starting, but I tried to get it out as soon as I could! Enjoy.

Yang probably jumped the gun, coming to the conclusion that their apartment was haunted. Maybe she wasn’t in her right mind, seeing as she had yet to fall asleep at three in the morning. Sheets stuck to her legs as she stared wide-eyed at the ceiling fan; it cast shadows that flickered on and off of her face, as its blades cut lazily through the thick air.

        

         As grad students, there wasn’t much they could complain about. Yang’s roommate, Mercury, had found the place in some back page of one of those newspapers that stood untouched in the doctor’s office, avoided in favor of an outdated magazine. He was the kind of person who would purposely look for things that were out of the way, whether it was some hole-in-the-wall restaurant, or some hole-in-the wall apartment.

 

         Despite the almost suspiciously low price, the place worked out for them. They strung fairy lights along the walls to cover up the moldy spots of the ceiling, and Mercury finally had a place to hang all of his random posters and vintage comic book art prints he’d collected over the years.

 

         Still, the place wasn't the most temperature-savvy. The air conditioning either blasted icy air, which lingered between the folds of sweaters for what seemed like eternity, or wasted their electricity, and did nothing at all. Yang’s room was the worst. When they’d decided on the place, albeit for its very low price, she volunteered to deal with the heat. “ _I’m from Florida,”_ she’d said. “ _It can’t be worse than that.”_

For the most part, her prediction was right. Yang usually slept like a rock; the minute her head touched the pillow, she was out, and unable to process how ungodly uncomfortable her room really was. But tonight, she stood on a balance beam, teetering between consciousness and the popcorn ceiling above her head.

 

         A loud noise tore her out of this limbo. It started out as a shuffling, an indistinct movement that Yang could just barely comprehend, and grew like a crescendo into a symphony of crashing and a choked-up gasp. In her half-asleep mind, Yang decided that this was a typical opening sequence of a horror movie, and reached for her metal bat. She’d kept it, even after quitting high school softball.

 

         Either someone was robbing the house, and this was a Jason Voorhees scenario, or some little girl had died in a fire thirty years ago, likely due to this goddamn heat, and had just awoken as a spirit now. It would explain how cheap the place was, honestly.

 

         The common space was empty, shadowed by the night, but illuminated by big-city activity outside. The only noises, other than that _shifting_ , were the fan’s creaking, and the heavy, restrained breathing in Yang’s chest, as she gripped the bat’s handle, and rested it over her shoulder cautiously.

 

         She grabs a salt shaker hesitantly, having binged the first few episodes of whichever monster of the week show they had on the CW, and proceeded to the opposite side of the apartment, where Mercury’s room was; where the noise was.

 

         Nevertheless, it still took her a good few moments to realize that the noise didn’t come from any otherworldly presence at all. Her hand had already wrapped itself around his door’s handle, body prepared to swing a bat at any intruders, when she heard it. Amongst the soundscape, she heard pale whimpers. She could see, as she opened the door slowly, that the shuffling from before was really thrashing limbs and silent screams.

 

         Mercury was having a nightmare.

 

         Though they’d known each other since their first year of college a while back, Yang couldn’t say she knew much about the guy. Mercury was as good at deflecting questions about his past as he was at playing his guitar. He danced around answers and switched to some tangent within seconds of her queries. However, over the years, Yang had figured out a few things. For one, whatever he was avoiding, couldn’t have been good.

 

         He still went to therapy, and Yang couldn’t help but look up the words scrawled across the labels of his pill bottles. She had names for all of his scars. He never talked to much about it, but she knew that his dad was a sore spot.

 

         Nightmares weren’t out of character, even if Yang didn’t expect it. But nevertheless, she was at a loss for words. Armed with a bat and her half-asleep brain, Yang had no clue how she could help in the slightest.

 

         Another choked whimper broke Yang out of her panic, bringing her brows together in determination. She bit her lip, resting the bat against the floor, and letting the handle lean into the threshold of the door, spending a good twenty seconds trying to keep it balanced there, before walking over to Mercury’s bed.

         He’s grabbing at his throat, as if someone was pinning him against an invisible wall and choking the world out of his lungs. Yang slowly pries his fingers out of his neck, and winces when she sees the crescent shaped bruises he’d left behind.

 

         “I’m so going to regret this,” she whispers, forcing his hands to lay at Mercury’s sides. After a few seconds, she moves the corner of his blanket away to lay next to him. It’s awkward at first, because she’s laying there straight as a pencil while he shivers next to her. But eventually, her back relaxes, despite the springy mattress, and a slow sigh exits her mouth.

 

         She rolls over to face the shivering form of her friend, not sure to wake him up or not. Deciding against an awkward situation, she wraps her arms around his neck instead, pulling him towards her torso in an attempt to comfort. He tenses immediately, hands waving violently, but after a few seconds, everything stops. He’s quiet, fingers laced in strings of golden hair, tear stained face illuminated by the fairy lights above.

 

         Mercury’s room was definitely cooler than Yangs, and the fan doesn’t make as much noise, so it doesn’t take long for her to drift off, tangled in her own embrace. His heartbeat is calming, and makes Yang feel like she’s floating underwater, drifting just below the surface, watching the moonlight dance over the waves and feeling it’s cool glow on her face.

 

         Her dreams are full of silver and fairy lights.

 

         But when she wakes up, it’s like opening your eyes to a hangover. Because she’s drooling on a pillow that’s not hers, looking into two unmistakable inky eyes. He’s gloating, she can tell, lying perfectly still just so she can rip herself away, red rushing to her cheeks.

 

         “Sleep well?” Mercury asks. She doesn’t have to look, to see the smirk carving itself into his face. His facial muscles were conditioned for that expression, that facetious, unbelievably narcissistic countenance he wore daily, lips curling into a smirk as if it were second nature.

 

         But Yang had dealt with it before. She’d known him for awhile after all, even if it were in less intimate settings. She crosses her arms, looking him dead in the eye (ignoring the blush) as she replies. “Could’ve used a less annoying pillow.”

 

         He looks at her as if to say “ _oh, so we’re playing this game now?”_ and shifts himself upwards against the wall. “I wasn’t aware that you saw me as a pillow, I’m a person, you know.”

 

         She didn’t have much to say about that. He shrugs, stretching his arms out and revealing his marred, but beautiful body. _Fuck, was he shirtless this whole time?_

         “No but really, Yang,” Mercury says, sarcasm barely present in his voice as he grabs a dirty shirt from his shirt-littered floor and pulls it over his head, pushing overgrown silver hair from his face. “What are you doing in my room? I mean, we would really have great sex, I’m sure, but I distinctly remember us falling asleep in two different rooms.”

 

         “Sex? What? No,” Yang stutters, covering her body with her hands, before realizing that her torso was, for the most part, bare (save for a sports bra.)

 

         “Well what else am I supposed to think when I wake up next to my attractive roommate, who, like me, is half naked and very, very impulsive?” He stretches his arms out again, wincing as he works through a stiff muscle.

 

         “Uh. Well, you see…” She’s about to tell the truth, but he puts her off with that word: _attractive._ “Wait, you find me hot?”

 

         “You find yourself hot, Yang,” he chuckles. “It’s not a surprise, is it?”

 

         “Well, yeah,” she sputters. He smirks, and she realizes that _oh shit_ , she finds him hot too. “But I’m totally out of your league.”

 

         “Stop deflecting,” he deadpans. “What are you doing in my room?”

 

         “Sleeping.”

 

         “Why were you sleeping in _my room_. Specifically, on my bed. With me,” he clarifies.

 

         “Because it was too hot in my room,” she offers. “You know that the Air Conditioning is totally busted. I couldn’t sleep, and I decided to sleep where it was cooler.”

 

         “We have a comfortable living room couch for that.”

 

         Why was he so goddamn good at seeing through her.

 

         “Do you want to know? Like really, really want to know?” She asks, lacing her fingers together nervously, lip under her teeth.

 

         “That’s why I’m asking in the first place, Yang.” He grabs his phone from the bedside table and scowls at the time. “It’s too fucking early for this shit.

 

         “You were having a nightmare.” He looks up at her, eyes widening slightly. “I couldn’t get to sleep and I heard it, so I came in, thinking that something was wrong and… well, I mean something _was_ wrong.”

 

         “Oh.”

 

         “Yeah.”

 

         “I liked the broken Air Conditioning excuse better,” he says, honestly. It wasn’t often that Mercury said things so truthfully. He seemed to get high on his own vague words and lies; even other people were enthralled by the pictures he painted with his voice. But now, it was flat and almost scared.

 

         “I knew you would.”

 

         “Wanna sit down?” He asks, patting the bed next to him. She obliges, not really sure what else she could do. “I should probably explain shit now.”

 

         “You really don’t have to.”

 

         “If you have to deal with me like that, you should at least know why.”

 

         “I shouldn’t have to,” Yang whispers. Her hand inches closer to his. “It’s your secret.”

 

         “And my bed,” he says. “But here you are.”

 

         “Good point,” she giggles. “But you really don’t have to.”

 

         “My dad was kind of an asshole,” he explains, before motioning to all of the old scars littering his chest. “If you couldn’t tell.”

        

         “I could.”

 

         “Rad, that gets _that_ out of the way.” He’s picking at the undersides of his fingernails, biting at his cuticles every once in a while. “He really fucked me up. Like, big time.”

 

         “Is that what you were dreaming about?” Yang asked, quietly, just to fill the suffocating air. “Last night.”

 

         “Probably, they’re usually the same, and I usually don’t remember them when I wake up. Or I do remember them, since they’re technically just memories.” He stares at his hands, and Yang wonders if she can hold one. “It’s usually me in the kitchen, or in my bedroom, or some place, and he comes in drunk. He always did.”

 

         “Is that why you don’t drink?” She asks. He nods. “I always thought that was weird, but I guess it makes sense, now.”

 

         “Yeah, no shit.” His laugh is cold and dark. She doesn’t really know how to deal with it. “Anyways, he comes in drunk, and that’s all I can smell. The alcohol in his breath, the iron in my blood that he spills. It’s fucked up.”

 

         “Yeah, I can tell.”

 

         “You know, I can’t even remember his face.” He says honestly. And he grabs her hand, even if he doesn’t seem to notice it. “Every time I try to think about it, I just see static where his eyes are supposed to be. Everything is blurred out.”

 

         “Has it been awhile?”

 

         “It’s only been like five years, which is why it’s so fuckin’ weird.” He finally looks down at their hands. Yang’s scared that he’ll let go, but he doesn’t. “Probably repressed it.”

 

         “Did he go to jail?”

 

         “Nah,” Mercury says, stroking his chin in that way people do when they want to seem less emotionally invested. “He fuckin’ died, good riddance.”

 

         “How?”

 

         “Same way I lost these babies,” he wiggles his legs, two prosthetics that she always forgot about. Somehow he could afford the robotic ones. “Car crash. Guess who was driving?”

 

         “Oh.”

 

         “Eh, at least it cushioned the blow of being literally legless.”

 

         “Yeah, I guess so.” She hesitates before saying her next words. “Are you going to be alright?”

 

         “I always am.” He laughs, cracking his neck slightly and smiling. “I’ve been fine.”

 

         “You always seemed like it.”

 

         “Well yeah,” he says simply. “Things changed around the time I met you.”

 

         “How?”

 

         “Well, I started going to therapy, I found out that it was easier to project my anger onto schoolwork than onto people around me, and…” He looks at her, moving their hands, still entwined, into Yang’s field of vision. “There was you.”

 

         “Me?”

 

         “You’re like this tiny little sun in the middle of this grey wasteland of suffering,” he says. “I dunno, it just felt like I needed that light.”

 

         “You flatter me.”

 

         He shakes his head. “Light always comes where you don’t expect it.”

 

         And when he said that, it made a bit more sense. Because Mercury was the kind of person who would purposely look for things that were out of the way. Who’d look for an apartment in the back of an old newspaper, or who’d cover up moldy spots in the ceiling with everything but paint. It’s just that Yang didn’t expect to be one of those fairy lights.

 

         She gets close to him, finger pressing gently against his cheek as she whispers. “Can I…?”

 

         He nods.

 

         Their lips meet, and it feels like something she couldn’t have imagined. Because she never did. For some reason, she never noticed this feeling bubbling underneath the surface. Either covered up with fear, or shrouded by ignorance. But it felt so perfect, something that she could only find in this moment. In this apartment on their springy mattress, an old softball bat leaning against the wall, and fairy lights beaming down from the ceiling.

 

         When they part, she smiles. He smiles too.

 

         “Maybe I can come back tomorrow night?” She asks. “For the air conditioning, of course.”

 

         “I knew it was too hot in that room," he snickers, head lolling back onto his pillow lazily. 

 

         “Maybe.” She brings herself closer to him, and he obliges, addicted to her fireworks. And as she feels the warmth of his breath by her ear, as she wraps her limbs around his, she realizes that it was never too hot in her room.

 

         “Or maybe it was just too cold.”

 

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For those wondering where all my other GnG fics went, they're still a thing, I'm just not really in a RWBY mood right now. That will probably change when volume 6 airs, so just assume they're on hiatus until episodes start coming out again. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this lil oneshot! Most of the plot was conceived by my commissioner Shipper, so writing it was way easier than things usually are. I added the kissing though as an extra lil' treat :)


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